A Decade-Long Selection Of Music

Some of what I’ve liked over the last ten years. In no particular order.

Update: Now put behind a cut so people won’t have to have their computers choke everytime they visit. But if you’ve not seen the videos, you want to click through. Your life would be sad without them. So. Very. Sad.

I must say that a lot of your musical taste overlaps with mine, and almost cursed you for posting that Regina Spektor song; it nearly brought me to tears earlier this year when I was going through a bad breakup.

And, glad to see you post The Darkness; it’s like someone took an 80s hair metal band, froze them in 1987, thawed them out in 2003/2004, and then froze them again to bring them out in another decade and a half.

Oooh, I love Stephen Torrence! Before him the only ASL I knew was the alphabet and some of the lyrics to Rock Lobster. Now I know the alphabet, some of the lyrics to Rock Lobster, and a fair bit of the words to Party in the USA.

Thank you. There was a time when I swore I’d always keep up with current music, but that time was over 40 years ago, and it just didn’t happen. So it’s good to get some recommendations for recent bands to try.

Bunch of strange-to-me music there, John. I’ll try some of them. I’ve been bouncing up and down because I’ve just discovered that the lawyers (?) have finally allowed the production of a CD from something recorded in 1966 by RCA as a three LP set; many of the performers were young and signed contracts after the LP won a Grammy in 1967, but with different companies, and it was only a couple of years ago that it all got sorted out. I’ve purchased this on vinyl a couple of times and am overjoyed it’s going to be in my car next Christmas as two CDs, remastered from the original analog tape.

Oh, I should say what it is, I suppose. The Robert Shaw Chorale and Orchestra performing Handel’s Messiah, on RCA Red Seal. Not the Atlanta Symphony version.

It took me a couple of minutes for my computer to start working once I clicked over to scalzi.com. Maybe we could hide these below the fold or something? I hope it isn’t like this every time I come to this page.

I just wanna check, John, that yu are clear that your posting of these videos on on your site is compliant with the relevant legislation and/or internet usage policies of the bands/music companies concerned?

I’m a Pumpkins fan from way back (as way back as one can be, I suppose), and was glad to see you include Stand Inside Your Love, one of the most underrated hits in a long time. But I noticed something…does that video feature the fat dude from Borat? The guy who plays Asamat Bagatov? I’m pretty sure that’s him…which is a bit of a distraction in an otherwise fantastic piece…

Love that video for The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.” Probably because I used to work in a semiconductor wafer fab (AKA chip manufacturing company). A couple of points worth noting: aside from some quick views of chips being sliced apart and packaged, most of the machines in the video are metrology equipment, i.e., used to measure and test the various layers being deposited on the wafers. The machines that deposit, pattern and etch the layers are much less photogenic. Also, the female equipment operator at one point is fiddling with the EMO button, a switch that can be pressed in an emergency to shut the tool off–say, if someone were to get their hand caught in the robot. You DO NOT want to be fiddling with the EMO button, particularly on tools that take days to clean and restart when power has been lost. People who unintentionally press an EMO button would earn the temporary nicknames “Captain EMO” or “Tickle Me EMO.”

Smashing Pumpkins was my #1 band coming into this decade. Strangely, I didn’t like Machina very much when it came out, but after ten years it’s the only Pumpkins album that I listen to regularly anymore.

hey, you introduced me to the Ting -Tings when you posted them as wake-up music – Loved the album ever since.

As I was making up my “most-listened-to” new music from the past year, I realized that I’d gotten old – they’re almost all folk/Americana/guy with a guitar/hippie-jam-band-groove style music – Except for Tinted Windows. How can you proclaim your love for good, catchy pop like Girlfriend and forget the Windows????